Viewer, after watching the third installment in the SHREK trilogy (tearing his hair apart):Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the wickedest of them all?

Mirror:Oh my dear, do you really want me to answer that question for you. You know, there aren’t really any choices to choose from.

Viewer:Yeah, you’re right…these studio guys just know how to milk money…to the last drop and turn what was once wholly creative to something that is infinitely boring. But SHREK 2 was so good, it was laugh-out-loud funny.

Mirror:Who’re you kidding dear? They had everything covered in the first movie itself and that was great. The second was just an excuse to milk money, only that it was a very good excuse.

Viewer:But it was good and Antonio Banderas as Puss In Boots was fantastic. The moment that will always remain with me is when Puss realizes his “moment” of greatness and “confronts” the soldiers with big wide eyes. Arguably one of the funniest moments I have had the movies.

Mirror:But look what they did to him here. They just give him one-liners here to keep the younger enthusiastic viewers interested. And the most horrible thing they did was spoil the good memory you had of the Puss sequence by overusing it not one but two times here; with zero humor.

Viewer:Yeah, I almost slept and had it not been for the drop-a-hat- ready-to-laugh audience, I would have had a good sleep. And what was that stupid thing about Donkey and Puss exchanging their physical exteriors? I smiled a total of once during the entire movie. Gee, and that is when I was laughing out loud in the previous two movies.

Mirror:Milking money darling, milking money. How in the wide world are the younger audiences going to have fun in the absence of zero creativity?

Viewer:You said it magic mirror, you nailed it. Both the SHREK movies, much like both the TOY STORY movies and THE INCREDIBLES were films that you could enjoy without having to worry about how you’re going to defend yourself in front of your more macho friends. I mean, I had a real tough time with ANTZ. But this here, this doesn’t even stand in that range.

Mirror:You bet, they should put an age bar on movies like this, say a C certificate. Anyone above the age of 12 will not be allowed inside.

Viewer:You know, why I loved the first two movies? They were so different, so much more creative than the other generic animation stuff in the market. You had those ICE AGE movies that were again strictly for children. And between carnage like these, I got to watch SHREK and FINDING NEMO that reminded me so much of good old times, times that had THE LION KING and TOY STORY.

Mirror:That is the tragedy; this third installment has become the exact product that its predecessors were infinitely better than. You know, all these average movies follow a pattern- five to six writers each come with a witty “their point-of-view” wisecrack and the studio bosses come with their “creative” inputs too. And then, what could be termed a poor excuse for a story is woven to string these jokes together.

Viewer:Yeah, they just overdid the pop-culture reference part. I mean, the constant sleeping of the Sleeping Beauty and the constant nagging by Snow White was irritating than funny. Merlin was good and so was King Arthur. In fact the only character I really liked was that of King Arthur. Justin Timberlake was good. But that was all with Arthurian myth. Some references to Guinevere and Lancelot, but that was just another reason to generate some cheap laughs by using college talk.

Mirror:You like it now? They’re already planning another three movies. See how they overdo him.

Viewer:Heard that they’re going to go on the lines of a prequel.

Mirror:Whatever. Prequel, sequel, they are one and the same. Repackaging the original with five new one-liners and over-using the best moments from the predecessors. They’ll make money, one way or the other. This is where movies stop becoming creative and start becoming arguments in favor of “EVILS OF CAPITALISM”. You know what they’re teaching at film schools these days-How to be a commercially viable director with zero talent? And it has to do a lot with silly sequels.

Viewer:I still haven’t lost hope for this summer’s sequels. What if SPIDERMAN 3 and SHREK 3 weren’t up to the mark? Even if Jack Sparrow disappoints, I still am hoping a lot from Daniel Ocean’s brat pack and Jason Bourne.The viewer turns away and walks, promising himself never to watch a SHREK movie again and secretly wishing for a magical charm to be woven around his most awaited movie of the summer – THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM.